All Our Doings

Every night for our family scripture study we use The Book of Mormon for Latter-day Saint Families. Not only does it give definitions to words my children don't understand and extra explanations during difficult sections, it has one feature that I love. It is divided into smaller sections than the normal Book of Mormon chapters. They begin and end in spots that are natural and help break the scriptures down not only for kids, but for moms like me. We began reading this particular book with our kids in January 2008 and read one "section" a night. Just to let you know, we are just halfway through Alma. It's slow going but Rachael and Dustin have sure picked up the scriptures stories in better detail and remember them better than I did at their age. We're just lucky if Hillary and Claire can remain quiet and still long enough to make it through while we read.

All of this is to preface the experience I had last night. I had decided to re-read the section from the night before. I had a feeling that it was important enough to visit again, especially since the night before no one had been listening very well, including myself. Alma 37:33-37 picks up as the prophet Alma is teaching his son Heleman. We broke it down verse by verse and discussed what each one meant. At the beginning of verse 37 it says "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good;" I tried to emphasize that the Lord cares about everything in our lives, from the everyday mundane things to the things and events that are more grandiose. What's important to us is important to Him.

This brief conversation brought me to the realization that I rarely councel with my Heavenly Father on the small things. There are so many happenings that you deal with on a daily basis when you are a mom. Motherhood is hard and it's easy for the BIG problems, trials and hardships to dominate our thoughts and time. It's the small things that I need to be talking to my Heavenly Father about more. It really does matter to him that I need help getting up some mornings, or that it's a frustrating sometimes to sit down and organize a meal plan and grocery list. He cares about those things just as much as patching up a fight with your husband or having more patience with your children.

After pondering on my thoughts, I turned back to Alma 36:3 and my heart was at peace. I'll let you look it up to discover what I read. It's one of my favorites.